Happy Birthday, Gilloth and Melloth
by sazza-da-vampire
Summary: Family Matters. Legolas and his friends are trusted to throw a birthday party for his young nieces. Long dead Elvish heroes come to the rescue when the party is crashed by two of the Nazgul - or so it seems to the terrified ten-year-olds.


Disclaimer: I own nothing recognisable.

Happy Birthday, Gilloth and Melloth

Thranduil sighed. The twins' birthday was fast approaching, but their mother, Nímloth, was accompanying a mission as a healer. The same mission, moreover, as their father, Bragolaglor, which left their grandparents to organise and pull off their birthday celebrations.

Thranduil, meanwhile, was faced with open war in the south of the Greenwood. He could not blow off the war just to entertain children.

Aldariel, the Queen of the Green Wood, was taking on his responsibilities to the Realm while Thranduil took the army south. She would be far too busy, with twice her normal workload, to plan her grandchildren's birthday party.

"We could ask Legolas to do it," Aldariel suggested. "He and his friends won't be joining the army, they are too young. They would enjoy it."

Thranduil perked up. "Now that is an idea. Tathar and Aldanna will require supervision, though."

"They will be fine, my love."

.

Legolas hugged his father goodbye, as the army mustered in the woods before the Halls. "Be safe, Ada," he whispered, and felt his father's strong arms squeeze him tight.

'I will," Thranduil promised. "Your nieces' birthday will likely be before we return. You know Nímloth and Bragolaglor will likely join us in the South. Would you mind throwing them a party?"

Legolas stepped back, hands on his father's shoulders, while his father reciprocated the gesture. "I will," he promised solemnly, his demeanour far too mature for an ellon his age.

"Let your friends help you."

"Farewell, Ada,"

"Farewell, ion nin."

.

"Tathar!" "Aldanna!" Legolas, Brethilríl and Brethildíl had gathered as the army left, for the Brethils' father was the King's Bodyguard, and accompanying the army. The three had immediately searched for the missing members of their band, to give them the news.

Tathar met them on the bridge before the gates, having farewelled his own father as he left with the army.

Brethilríl slapped Tathar gently on the back, laughing. Tathar cuffed him on the shoulder, and the pair started brawling on the bridge, stopping only when Brethilríl found himself retreating too close to the edge.

Aldanna, who had been in the treetops, having said farewell to her own father months before when he went south, found a branch hanging above her friends. With a battle cry, she bowled Tathar over, coming to a stop sitting on the tall ellon's chest as he struggled to push her away.

Laughing, Brethilríl declared his victory as Tathar glared at them both.

.

Five shadows slunk along the corridor. A voice whispered, barely discernible above the gentle wind, "Why are we hiding already?"

A chorus of _shhhh_ met this remark, and the shadows continued. A light up ahead marked the family quarters of Legolas' older sister, Nímloth, and her daughters - currently the only occupants, other than the visiting Lothlomë, Legolas' younger sister.

Legolas slipped into the room first, slinking around behind furniture to station himself behind the sitting room door, just out of sight of the three children intently discussing something in a 'secret language'.

Tathar and Brethildíl followed, stopping behind the settees the little ellyth sat on.

Aldanna took a running leap into the room, loosing a wild Silvan cry. She landed square in the middle of the three children, who jumped back, screaming.

Legolas and Brethilríl blocked the doors, while Tathar and Brethildíl leapt from hiding, grabbing a child each around the middle. Aldanna took the third child hostage.

Legolas stepped forward, imperiously. He looked down his nose at the captives, dismissing his nieces as he turned to his sister.

"Lothlomë of the Green Wood, you are now my prisoner."

Gilloth and Melloth twisted and turned in their captors arms. Brethildíl and Aldanna only gripped them tighter.

.

Twenty minutes later, Legolas had convinced the twins to let him plan and throw their birthday party this year. Gilloth insisted on a pretty in pink theme, but Melloth wanted a horror theme, inspired by Legolas' taking them hostage.

Aldanna insisted that they could have both, with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

.

The anniversary of the twins' birth rolled around long before the army returned, and Legolas and his friends were prepared.

Brethilríl wore a torn black cloak and black rags, and had powdered his skin to a glowing white with flour. With an old broken practice sword in his hand, the splintered wood stained with berries to look like blood, Brethilríl looked like a Nazgûl.

Tathar was a spectacular imitation of Gil-Galad of old, dressed in the armour his father had worn on the Dagorlad millennia ago. Bearing a splintered spear, stained with berries, Tathar was terrifying to behold.

Legolas, in his own father's Dagorlad armour and holding another broken spear, was imitating his deceased grandfather, King Oropher.

Aldanna, clad in a flowing white dress, and powdered with flour, had covered her hands in red berry juice and black mud, to appear as a ghost.

Brethildíl was wearing a tattered black cloak, and head to toe, was stained with berry juice, imitating a second Nazgûl.

.

Lothlomë hosted her nieces (and close friends') birthday party in a courtyard, hidden high on the mountain of the Wood-Elf-King's Hall.

The little girls were all dressed in pink, and Lothlomë, as host, poured pink tea from a pink teapot into pink teacups for each of the guests.

The Guests of Honour, the Birthday Ellyth, Gilloth and Melloth were turning ten today. They wore matching pink dresses, Gilloth's a pale rose pink and Melloth's a dark pink, almost the fuchsia of some woodland flowers.

Lauruial, Lothlomë's best friend, wore a pink frock with so many layers in its skirt that it stuck straight out from her waist before gracefully curving to the ground. The nine-year-old arranged her skirts carefully before taking her seat on the delicate chair, and she held her teacup with one finger sticking straight out, like she had heard the ellyth in Imladris did.

The last members of the group, two ellyn, were rather bored. Seven-year-old Galenmír, disgusted at the pinkness of his tea, added dirt when the girls weren't looking, resulting in a drink which neither looked nor smelled (nor tasted) appetising in the least.

Encalion, the youngest of the group (being only three) took joy in the fact that he had been allowed to provide the baked goods for this party, specially baked by the baker, Taurwen. He happily showed off his cupcakes and scones, proudly declaring that he had helped make them. As Encalion served the scones, though, Lothlomë screamed.

On the battlement, a wide wall of stone at the outward side of the courtyard, two wraith-like figures had appeared.

"Ulairi!" Gilloth screamed, as Galenmír yelled, "Wraiths!"

What appeared to be the mortal remains of High King Gil-Galad and King Oropher suddenly appeared at the other side of the courtyard, on the slop of the mountain. Each bore weapons covered in blood and gore, and a white figure suddenly flew through the air, landing on (and breaking) the delicate table the children had been serving tea on.

With archaic battle cries, the ghostly heroes charged the wraiths, and the white figure emerged from the dusty wreckage of splinters to reveal itself - a figure covered in blood and gore.

Lothlomë bravely directed the younger children to run, and she left the courtyard last, following the screams from the children.

The children did not stop until they came to Lothlomë's room, it being the safest place they could think of.

They managed to calm down, until a rhythmic banging and moaning started at the door.

.

Aldanna bashed on Lothlomë's door, and Tathar supplied the ghostly moans. Further down the corridor, just in case the children had run to the twins' room, Legolas and the Brethils did the same to the door to Nímloth' quarters.

Screams in response to Aldanna's knocking confirmed the location of the children.

Aldanna smirked, and Tathar helped her knock the door down.

.

That evening, Aldanna cheerfully scrubbed away at the sofa in Nímloth' sitting room, while Legolas scrubbed the floor. Outside, Tathar and Brethilríl washed the rugs and the children's clothes.

Brethildíl, in the twins' room, had the harder task of calming the children down, and owning up to the mischief she and her friends had been up to during the birthday party.

All the children were present, as well as a few parents - those who were not marching with the army, of course.

Yes, Aldanna thought, I am lucky to be scrubbing pee out of the sofa.

A few metres away, Legolas was thanking his lucky stars that he had only landed the task of cleaning pee off the floor. He would clean this room, and a thousand others, without complaint if it meant not comforting the shaken children.

.

Brethildíl vowed to never again go along with any plan made by Legolas and Aldanna.

Tomorrow they would all have to apologise to the children, and later, their parents, but today, right now, only she was being blamed.

As she left, head hung low, Melloth whispered, "That was the best horror party ever."

Brethildíl smiled. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. Maybe, it was even worth the punishment.


End file.
